So he was, as the time got up, more excited than trepidatious. Even if it was a little soon. Even if it meant they had to quickly find a new, bigger place to move into to. Even if he would have to comfort Faith that it would be alright.
Faith took a deep breath. "Moment of truth," she said, looking from the clock to him and both of them turned to look down at the stick.
One line.
"Oh," Faith's breath whooshed out, but if he knew her, and he fucking did, it wasn't a relieved 'oh'. It was more of a disappointed 'oh'.
His arm gave her a little squeeze. "Well," he said, getting her attention. "We could, you know, start being less... careful," he offered and her head turned to him, megawatt smile in place.
"I could maybe get behind that idea."
And then they stopped being so careful.
Right there in that very bathroom.
Faith - 10 years
"Really, Ant?" Faith asked, shaking her head at her son and his honorary uncle as they walked in the door to her condo.
Eventually, Ant got clean, he got mostly out of pain, and he was generally un-grumpy at least sixty-percent of the time. He still walked with a cane and he still had bad days, but things had changed for him five years before. Starting when he met a woman.
But that was a story for another day.
"What? He wanted to look like us," Anthony defended, devilish smirk in place.
"Suit? Fine. But he has on a fedora, Ant. And spectator shoes. Where the hell did you even find spectator shoes for a kid? He looks like a gangster."
"So?"
"So, he's six years old!" she hissed. "And you are in the mob. Don't you think that's a little... on the nose?"
She and Daniel didn't get pregnant in the drug store bathroom. Or on their bed. Or in their shower. Or on the dining room table. Or in the stairwell of their building.
In fact, something they thought would be as easy as taking a condom out of the equation, ended up being one of the hardest parts of their relationship. She had peed on countless sticks over the course of four years before they finally started seeing doctors, getting tests run, and finally, she had to start taking shots. In the ass. Each time Daniel stabbed her with it, she got to slap him. It made her feel at least marginally better about the whole thing- at least they both had to go through some pain in the process.
Eventually, they finally, finally got two lines.
Faith quit Lam.
Daniel, K, and Trey all took over her classes while she couldn't.
Then, almost five years to the date of when they first met, she had a healthy, fat, squishy little baby with dark eyes and dark hair.
They had agreed, somewhere along the line, that they were only going to have one, that it was too heartbreaking a process to go through again. And she knew Daniel had been hoping for a girl, had wanted to raise a little girl to grow up to be like her mother. But they had a boy and Daniel curled up in the bed with her and declared, "This is just as good. Now, we can put another good man in the world. It needs them."
Nash was equal parts both his parents, meaning he was one-hundred percent confident, stubborn, opinionated, and loud. But he also got a healthy dose of his father's tenacity and his mother's giving personality. He was the favorite of all the girls in his school because he was the only boy who didn't buy into that cootie bullshit or tease them. Faith had a feeling he was going to be a real ladies man when he got older, but if he knew what was good for him, he would do that whoring around with respect.
Or he'd have his mother to answer to.
And his father.
And his Aunt Corey.
And K, Xander, Trey, Gabe, Salvatore, Gio, and Anthony as well.
"Oh, hey look," Daniel said, walking out from the bedroom, "Al Capone has been reincarnated," he said, grabbing the brim of his son's hat and pulling it down over his eyes. "Nice pocket square, kid."
"Uncle Ant said it was a joke," he said, lifting his chin and reaching up to fucking straighten his tie. "But I like it," he declared, moving away. "I want to wear it to school on Monday," he told them as he walked down the hall to admire himself in the mirror, no doubt.
"On the plus side," Ant said, still grinning, "they'll make him take off the hat at school."
With that, he gave Faith a wink and stepped into the hall. "See you on Sunday," he called, waving his hand over his shoulder at them as he walked away.
When she quit Lam to have Nash, Vin, being the old-fashioned man he was at heart, was a full supporter. And when she tried to bring up the delicate topic of her mother, Vin had held up his hand to stop her and declared that he was going to keep paying that bill regardless of what she still had hanging over his head. But that he had one condition- dinners at his place on Sundays.